February not turning out stellar hot so far – Weatherzone prediction falls flat on face so far – 6.8° out for Sydney

A week ago there was this article in that paragon of reliable information – The Sydney Morning Herald – Cool spell soon to be broken – phew now we can not enjoy a few cooler days without the Fairfax owned Weatherzone big-noting their colossal forecasting skills. – The 4 Feb SMH article says – “Saturday may see Sydney’s “best chance” of temperatures above 35 degrees, with more scorching weather set for western suburbs and inland towns…”.
Well Saturday reached 28.2 in Sydney not 35.
I am curious what readers are noticing in their areas – apart from Perth is there any unusual heat around ?
My point in this is that it is summer – some heat is to be expected – we know there may be hot spells in February – we can check the BoM standard forecasts.
They tell us this for the next week – a tough week ahead for the “heatwave spruikers”.

9 thoughts on “February not turning out stellar hot so far – Weatherzone prediction falls flat on face so far – 6.8° out for Sydney”

I have started trying to take note of this loudly proclaimed “record-breaking” forecasting and noticed on the news last night, Perth’s forecast 42 degrees, was quietly announced as “we almost got to 38 [or 39?] degrees” before upping the volume to announce the next batch of over 40 days. Will watch and see… Thanks for alerting me to this!

Warwick,
anecdotal evidence only, but here in the Adelaide Hills at least 5 people have complained to me in the last week about not getting ripe tomatoes, even to the point that one pulled all his plants up. Blame is put on the cool temperatures, with one night recently dropping below 7 degrees, and days warming very slowly. Even at 10 am this morning and supposedly on our way to 27, temp. was only 14.9.

Maybe the coming week of days in the mid thirties will make a difference.

Margaret
I’m sure that most people believe that Perth has been 41C for the past three days with more to come.
So far, Perth hasn’t had a 40C this month. In fact, if Wednesday is over 36.5C (and it well could be) then they can call it a heatwave as they will have had 5 consecutive days of +5.0C.
Perth was 39.5C today (11th Jan) according to the official BOM data.www.bom.gov.au/wa/observations/perth.shtml?ref=hdr

They have forecast 41.0C+ for the past 3 days but it still hasn’t reached it. 39C predicted for tomorrow though ABC has 41C.

Perth hot in February? Hold the press! Next thing you know is there will be a High in the Bight, north easterly winds, late sea breeze and a high fire danger.

The amazing thing is I can do this from Japan. Today I’ve spent 2 hours clearing snow from the road and footpath outside our shop/house, and 3 1/2 hours cutting and dumping about 30m^3 of snow from my garage roof.

Summers here on the midcoast have been milder since 2004. The Big Heat of 2013 had no legs. I don’t care if it’s the PDO (which, after all, is just an observation set, not a bloody “mechanism”). Something hooked us up to the ocean after 2006, and if you haven’t observed the change in dominant winds then you are probably…a peer-reviewed climate scientist!

Quick update on Perth’s recent heatwave.
Perth Airport did have 5 days of over 38C (last time in 1985) but Perth Metro did not (last time in 1975).
Perth AP had 39.3C on the 13th whereas Perth Metro had 37.6C.
Both Weatherzone and BOM’s DWO take Perth Metro’s recording (I assume because it is closer to the old Perth Regional Office site) so there will be no recognition of this on those sites.
The longest +38C February heatwave was in 1933 – six days. That heatwave went for 9 days.

BoM say Perth Metro commenced in 1993 – anything from 1975 attributed to Perth could have been Perth Regional Office 009034
Australian Weather News presents a neat snapshot of many Perth region stations current month. You have to scroll down past the rain data.

Yes, that’s correct, Warren. Perth RO did not have a 5 day +38C in 1985 but did in 1975.
As Metro is only 2.5km from the closed Perth RO (whereas Perth AP is some 10kms away), there would
be a closer comparison between temps between those two than the AP.
The AP has been in operation since the 1940s but appears to have higher average temps than the other two.